In various medium-heavy or heavy weapons or cannons and mortars, transferring the projectile to the barrel of the weapon is difficult. Especially handling heavy projectiles manually is both slow and dangerous. The aim is more and more to use semi-automatic or automatic operation, in which the projectiles are stored in different cartridges and moved from the cartridges with separate transfer equipment to the orifice of the barrel of the weapon, from where they are then transferred mechanically by pushing with a transfer device into the barrel. Devices of this type are known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,481,862, for instance.
During firing, the barrel of a weapon usually moves backward due to recoil, and this matter needs to be taken into consideration when designing the transfer equipment, its position and operation. Further, the breech mechanism, with which the back end of the barrel is closed during firing, requires its own space, and transfer devices need to be able to transfer the projectile at one go sufficiently far into the cartridge housing.
There are also risks involved in handling projectiles and, therefore, a projectile must not be rattled or subjected to very sudden accelerations.